When Arthur
Flegenheimer was born there was no earthquake, no darkening of the
sky; it was merely recorded that a Bronx saloonkeeper and his wife
had become parents of a blue-eyed boy on the sixth of August., Maybe
there should have been some foreshadowing of evil because in the next
two decades their boy would join forces with the underworld to rock
the nation.

His early days
were unremarkable enough. They said his mother, a good and
pious woman, had to take in laundry when her husband deserted them
and some felt those sad events during his formative years turned the
boy bad. He formed unfortunate associations and at fourteen, was
picked up for petty holdups and thievery. When he was nineteen, he
was arrested for burglary and convicted and this time he went to
jail.

Times were
unsettled, and the Volstead Act, (which many hoped would keep
servicemen away from alcohol,) had created an economy that many felt
contributed to the Great Depression because it caused the Government
to lose tax revenues on legal alcohol. It also created an instant
market between people determined to drink and others equally
determined to supply them. When Arthur got out of 'stir' he was happy
to help satisfy the demand.

It didn't take
him long to get himself organized. He began bootlegging, ( a name
born when people hid bottles in the legs of their boots,) and he kept
the Bronx and Manhattan supplied with booze. Soon he controlled the
policy game in Harlem, the slot machines throughout New York City,
and the restaurant rackets fell under his control next. His name was
made, but not as Arthur; he became the notorious 'Dutch Schultz', a
name stolen from a feared thug of earlier years. It was estimated
that he made $481,000 from 1923 to 1931 in bootlegged beer alone.

It was easy
because around the country, people saw Prohibition as a nuisance, an
infrigement on their personal freedom. Having a drink, or getting
drunk, were parts of the individual rights guaranteed by the
Constitution.

Such
people blamed the government for causing hard times and they
began making moonshine, hard cider and wines until the government set
a limit of two hundred gallons per year on wine products for
home use. Farmers turned to growing hops and corn, both used in the
manufacture of 'booze' although hops showed the greater profit.
Northern New York State was particularly adapted to hop growing with
its light sandy soil and certainly there was an abundance of workers
available. And if local people didn't want to work in the hopyards,
the owners could, and would, bring in crews of Native Americans from
the nearby reservations to help with the harvest.

In 1919 hops
brought $486 an acre as opposed to $21 an acre for corn.
Picking hops was a dirty, difficult job; the fields were dirty,
dusty, uncomfortable places in the blazing sun, the bugs bit
fiercely, and the sulphurs with which the vines had been sprayed
caused skin problems. Still, hopfields proliferated over the north
while in private homes small kegs of home brew bubbled away.

Smuggling
continued on a large scale despite the efforts of lawmen to curtail
the activity and with a three thousand mile border on the north,
officials were hard put to make a dent in the flow of illegal
spirits. In the winter many waterways along the borders froze and
that made it easy for the bootleggers to cross with sleds, cars, or
iceboats. The boats were almost silent and could outrun the skidding
cars of police which were few enough before 1925. Any state that
shared a border with Canada was a target for smugglers but New York
State was particularly vulnerable because of its direct routes to
some of Canada's major cities and their proximity, also.

Montreal to New
York was know as the 'Rum Trail' and it mostly followed U.S. Highway
9 from Rouses Point to Albany, N.Y. And Saranac Lake with its monied
people, brought north by the tuberculosis baccili, was a hotbed
of smugglers and friends of smugglers. There were known garages
where gangsters could make a fast getaway, leave their cars for a
fast paint job, have the plates switched, or pick up a decoy,
(someone to go ahead and see if the coast was clear.) There
were border crossings handy at Rouses Point, Chazy, and Champlain and
at many, the guards were conveniently near-sighted.

People showed a
lot of sympathy for the smugglers despite vicious murders like
the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago and the kidnapping and
torture of a farmer in the Catskills because he refused to tell the
location of his still, and 'Legs' Diamond bragging that upstate New
York was 'his territory.'

Few realized the
danger of being caught on the roads as rival gangs fought for control
of upstate highways that served as corridors for the transport of
illegal liquor. Trucks loaded with spirits were stopped,
drivers pulled out and savagely beaten or killed and it wasn't safe
to witness these scenes. Decent people made it a point not to be
abroad after dark when they might meet a careering, over-laden truck
coming down a narrow road with its lights off.

Officials
checking borders often recognized the sounds of on-coming vehicles
but turned over and went back to sleep, reckoning they weren't paid
enough to risk their lives asking questions. When householders saw
officers dumping smuggled beer and liquor, they brazenly ran outside
with pots and pans to catch what they could. Sometimes it was hard to
tell friend from foe.

During the first
year of Prohibition, $10,000,000 worth of liquor, 800 automobiles and
3000 stills were seized in New England and New York alone and 10,000
persons were arrested.They seized a freight car near Malone, N.Y.
containing a load of alcohol worth $7,500 American. It would
have been taken over the border and made into cheap liquor.
Sometimes poisonous industrial alcohol was substituted, causing
death, or blindness.

There were 50
known trails in the Lake Champlain district, most without customs
stations, and by the mid-20s, the smugglers had learned not to go in
either direction empty-handed. They began carrying silks or raw
alcohol into Canada and returning with liquor. They could buy
beer in Canada for $4.00-5.50 a case and sell it for $25 in the US,
while there was an $8.00 profit on a bottle of rye and $12.00 on
Scotch. it was said that 'anybody who had the $14.00 and his
train fare to Montreal' could go across the river and buy a case of
whiskey. Temptation was great when a lazy man could easily make
$600,000 a week profit just by doing a little smuggling.

Federal forces
were handicapped by the lack of manpower and equipment. There
were no uniforms, little support, and vey low pay. At the
beginning of Prohibition, the State Police paid their men $900.00 a
year and maintainance. The Border Patrol ws a bit more lavish
paying their men $1680.00 a year but they had to provide their
own uniforms.

In 1923 Troop B
of the State Police in Malone patrolled the entire northern New York
State border with sixteen men. Called the 'Black Horse Troop,
they were a crack group 21-40 years old, all six feet tall or better,
and they worked out of the Smith House in Malone. They were
mounted on handsome black Morgans and they worked twenty-four hours a
day, seven days a week under the command of Captain C.J. Broadfield.
The horses were sleek and their trappings gleamed and the men looked
'nine feet tall.'

Officers wore
tall, Stetson-type hats and Sam Brown belts crossed over their
chests. During the winter they had fur lined helmet-like hats with
ear pieces that could be tied over the top or worn to protect the
ears. In the cold weather, summer tunics were exchanged for
sheepskin-lined coats.

The seventy eight
man orgaization patrolled the borders in pairs, reporting in to the
small hamlets to pick up their orders at postoffices. They carried
Winchester 30-30 carbines, a big wooden nightstick, and a .45 caliber
Colt. They were always on duty, probably one reason why they
were not encouraged to marry. They wouldn't get motorized vehicles
until 1935 and then only Model Ts costing $275 each.

Bootleggers had
all the advantage with souped-up sixteen cylinder Packards, Marmons,
or Chandlers.. These cars had powerful motors and many were
capable of laying down smoke screens, had air compressors that could
raise dust storms in the dirt roads, or had tin cans of roofing nails
and broken glass to scatter on the road.

In 1922 there were 7000
indictments in the courts of northern New York State. Court was
held several times a year, usually downstate; rarely was it held in
Malone. It had been held once in Plattsburgh but the
difficulty of impanelling a jury anywhere along the border usually
caused it to be seated elsewhere.

This, then, was
young Arthur's world where he had proclaimed himself king and which
caused President Calvin Coolidge, vacationing at Paul Smiths', to
conclude weakly, "Prohibition was here to stay," 'whatever
its merits.'

Arthur, now Dutch
Schultz, was a persoally brutal, "mad dog killer" but also
a brilliant man. He was in fierce competition with other
hoodlums who specialized in the rackets and when Vincent 'Mad Dog'
Coll tried to muscle in on his business, Schultz put out a $50,000
contract on the man's head. In 1928 Schultz' partner, Joey Noe
was found murdered and Wineberg, the head of Dutch's disciplinary
forces was ordered killed. When US Attorney Thomas E. Dewey
concentrated on the hiding Dutch Schultz, Weinberg tried to move in
and take over some of the business for himself. Schultz
wouldn't stand for such insubordination and later it came to light
that Weinberg had been treated to a pair of 'concrete shoes' and
dumped into the Harlem River.

Over the next few
years, Dutch lost money to 'Legs' Diamond who controlled several
upstate highways.. Diamond often visited his brother who was a
patient at the Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranc Lake and we are told that
Dr. Trudeau was visited by the gangster.

"I hear the
kids going under the knife," he heard the man say.

"Yes he is,
but I don't see any problems," the doctor answered.

"Well, he'd
better make it," the man snarled before he vanished.

Diamond would
take his girlfriend downtown to shop and they were watched by some
very jittery policemen until they left town. Legs disappeared
soon after he'd shot Simon Walker. a parolee from Sing Sing and badly
wounded Red Cassidy. When he appeared again, Dutch had taken over his
territory. They fought it out and Diamond was shot three times
and killed in a roominghouse in Albany, N.Y.

Schultz now had
an army of 500 gunsels protecting his lucrative police and restaurant
rackets in Manhattan but there was one thing he'd failed to take into
consideration. On July 18th, 1931, the New York City police arrested
him for income tax evasion. His lawyers secured a change of
venue for Schultz, who'd already been tried once in Syracuse so he
arrived In Malone July 17th for a second trial.

The thirty-one
year old gangster was dressed quietly and he and his henchmen took
over the fourth floor of the Flanagan Hotel. He went to
local ball games and went horseback riding; why, he was 'just one of
the boys!" Few realized that back in New York City the
police had been offered a bribe of over $18,000 to let him go and the
expectant wife of US Attorey Thomas E. Dewey received a brutal phone
call to 'go down to the morgue and identify your husband!'

On the 23rd the
trial began. It was covered by representatives from the AP, UP,
INS, New York Herald Tribune, and The New York Daily New and
Schultz' henchmen covered the streets glad-handing the locals and
treating in bars. It was said that no one could pay for a drink all
that week in Malone.

When the trial
opened, Schultz squirmed on his hard wooden seat, dapper in a muted
pin-strip, a six-button vest, and a tie with bright pinwheels. He
perspired like everyone else in a week of prolonged heat but
after twenty-eight hours and twenty minutes, the jury returned with
their verdict of 'not guilty.' Rumors said that several
farms were paid off that day.

The court was
outraged. Federal Judge Frederick H. Bryant told the jury "your
verdict shakes the confidence of law abiding people in the
reliability of juries. You've rendered a blow to law enforcement."
US Attorney-General Homer Cummings called the verdict a 'terrible
miscarriage of justice."

The victorious
criminals weren't bothered and they threw a party at the Elks Club
with an open bar. When the verdict reached New York City, Mayor
LaGuardia said, "He won't be a resident of New York City.
There's no place for him here." Schultz fired back his
reply, "I'll be home tonight." And he was.

Many have debated
what happened in Malone that day. It was understandable that
the Judge and DA were outraged because a loophole or technicality
allowed this criminal to go free but Schutz wasn't beig tried for
murder, for the rackets he was in, or even for smuggling. He was
being tried for the wilful evasion of income tax. Harold Main,
former country district attorney summed up the problem, saying that
Schultz had been misinformed by his lawyer who told him that his beer
buisness was illegal, but he wasn't being tried for selling beer!

Perhaps the
hardest thing to swallow was the blatant public rejoicing in the
verdict, the blaring of horns, the cheers, and cat-calls.
Gullible people said 'ole Dutch had given to their hospital,
entertained lavishly, why., he was a nice
guy!'

So Schultz went
free but justice would not be denied. Thomas E. Dewey began
crowding the syndicate hard and their members were picked up
repeatedly, harassed, and convicted. They held a top level
meeting and Schultz wanted to kill Dewey but Louis Lepke Buchalter,
head of the mob, knew it would simply call every law officer in the
country. Buchalter was an important figure in the underworld and no
one argued with him. When Dutch argued, then turned his back on him
and walked out, he was a dead man. No one turned his back on the
dons, so Schultz became a hunted man.

After the trial,
Schultz gave to charities and hired an advertising agency to promote
his new image but it was too late. Less than three months later, he
was dead, shot down in a New Jersey tavern called the Palace Chop
House. He was shot just two days before he'd planned to kill US
Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, gunned down by Charlie 'the Bug' Workman
who went on trial for the murder and received a life sentence.
Workman was parolled after serving twenty-two years.

After the shooting, Schultz was rushed to the Newark
City Hospital where he drifted in and out of a coma. His
mother, sister, and wife were standing by his bedside when he died at
8:40 p.m. Oct. 23rd, he was just 33 years old. The king was dead and
Prohibition was on its way out. The experiment that President Herbert
Hover called 'noble in motive' was a failure. In 1933 Prohibition was
repealed by the 21st Amendment.

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